Tunnel Vision? Life Metaphors, Like Night and Day

l always invite a person to begin their life mapping journey by expressing a Life Metaphor. Then, later, I ask them to consider how that Image relates to their own current life or their life history. Then at the very end of their life mapping “time out” reflections–usually over several months–I ask them again:

WHAT, TO YOU, IS A HUMAN LIFETIME LIKE?

How So? (Please Explain your Life Metaphor Image).

The images people offer before and after they take some time to reflect on their life as a whole–where they’re at,how they got here, where they appear to be headed, and what is the Life Dream that would manifest true Fulfillment in their life–are like Night ad Day. For example, in Spring 2012 I conducted a university class with 89 students (1/2 at a time) through a complete Life Mapping process.Here are just a few of the “Before” and “After” Life Metaphor images they expressed:

 

This class was in 2012, not long after the US Great Recession of 2008 and during one of the most depressed job markets Americans have faced. When I compared the students’–mostly college Seniors–Before and After Life Metaphor images, I was actually a bit shocked at first. Almost to a person, their Before images indicated Uncertainty about their Future Life Path possibilities, just at the point that most of them were about to graduate from college.  Their After images, also almost to a person, reflected Clarity, Light, Hopefulness, greater Self-Confidence, and Enthusiasm.

Folks, that is why I’m doing this; this blog and the Life Paths book and self-help companion Handbook that have emerged from developing the approach I call the Life Maps Process.

So, here’s a 3-step technique for you to try. First, if you haven’t already engaged with this week’s Life Mapping Tool (see the right panel), please respond to the prompt:

What, to you, is a human lifetime like? What image comes to mind? HOW is a lifetime Like that image?

Second, ask yourself (you may journal your reply): WHY do you believe you “get” this image, now? In what ways might this Life Metaphor image reflect elements of your own current life or your life history?

Next, for your third step, I invite you to IMAGINE. Envision a time or a place in your future when/where you feel ultimately FULFILLED. You have found and realized your Bliss; you are Living Your Dream, Now!

Okay, so from this perspective, from the Vantage Point of your Life Dream fulfilled:

WHAT, TO YOU, IS A HUMAN LIFETIME LIKE?

How So? (Please Explain your Life Dream Metaphor Image).

I invite you to take some “time out” to entertain these questions. I welcome and would love to share your story!

Life Metaphors We Live By

          So is life, for you, a Road to Glory or a demolition course?  Is it a slow, inevitable march into oblivion or a recurring series of cycles of growth that lift you by trials and gradual achievement toward increasingly lofty goals? Then also, in terms of what you are setting out to achieve with a Life Mapping adventure, will you be able to switch horses midstream, if you wish to, transmuting lead into gold? Yes! You can! (L. Watts, Life Paths, Chapter 2)

When you close your eyes and envision a human life, what is it is like; what image do you see? This is a Life Metaphor.

Life metaphors are schematic cognitive models, habitual ideas you have developed. You might ask yourself, where do they come from and why do you hold this image currently rather than another?

Some Life Metaphors are culturally shared and defined: Life is a Journey, for instance. This model reflects the epic, mythic hero cycle stories found universally in all cultures such as Joseph Campbell describes in The Hero with 1000 Faces. These stories represent the hero’s adventure as a going, reaching fulfillment, and then and a return to serve humanity, as in the mythic adventures of Prometheus or Theseus, or of Dorothy in The Wizard the Oz or even Harry Potter.

There is the metaphor of Life as a Mountain, with peaks and valleys: Sisyphus, for example, is compelled to roll a stone up the mountain and then it falls back down and he starts over again, endlessly.

Or perhaps a Life is like a Hot Air Balloon ride? I saw one land once in a peach orchard while I was working on a farm. It was from Canada. The pilot got out and he seemed to me to have come from another world altogether.

There are many other life metaphors that reflect and can also influence our understanding of life. Life metaphors can even shape our interpretations of and responses to life events.  Is life a Roller Coaster ride, and if so, when or for whom?

I have always loved the Life Metaphor of Life as a Carousel, which is why I use the interesting “Carousel” header image with this blog, by the fantastic artist Ann Wipf, showing the horses leaping off from their platform. A carousel goes round and round and up and down, in time with the musical sound and flashing lights of the platform arcade. Traditional carousels may have a brass ring that the riders reach out for and try to catch as they go around. This reminds me of the golden snitch in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories; I have a poster on my den wall that shows Harry going for the snitch and it reads: “The game of Quidditch isn’t over until the Golden Snitch is caught.” Such metaphors as these can serve to propel us forward through the trials and tests of life as we aim to attain our life dreams.

SO THIS WEEK I INVITE YOU TO IMAGINE: what is Life like to you, now? Close your eyes to envision Life or a lifetime; what image do you see? Explore the implications, the metaphoric entailments, thoroughly. How is a lifetime like the image you perceive, and why?

On Tuesday we will look more closely at the variety and basis of Life Metaphors. I invite you to share your stories and insights this week!